I Know...I Think

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

13 years into teaching and I still question a good deal of what I do pedagogically. I question whether 17 more years of teaching is in even within my capacity. This is a difficult job.

Often times, I look for strength in my students to keep me going and knock sense into me that teaching is indeed my calling. I received the following letter from a student who exemplifies what any teacher would hope for in a student and father in a daughter.

This letter provides strength and resolve within me to carry forward. Thank you Rory for the kind words.

Friday, June 7, 2013

I received an email this morning from a senior in my Beginning Strings class. Thought I'd share. Hello Mr. Park

I thought you might enjoy this essay about a meaningful classroom experience I wrote for this program at Yale. As a side note, I could not be more thankful for the job you do as a teacher and the work you put into making every member of the beginning strings ensemble a stronger musician and team cooperator. Thank you Mr. Park, you are really nothing short of a miracle worker, and one of my biggest regrets is not taking orchestra earlier in my high school career.

Essay

Forced into taking a music course my senior year, and placed into the beginning strings ensemble, the only thing I knew about the violin was that it had two holes that looked like integrals. Beginning with a wildly unsuccessful foray into the Orchestra Expressions method book, followed by countless, futile appeals from my family to “shut the damn door!” and culminating with the thrice-interrupted Lullaby for Nicholas during the concert, the first semester of Beginning Strings taught me to not only acknowledge but also respect my inabilities. And, yes the slow melodic Lullaby for Nicholas was stopped three times during the winter beginning ensembles concert because, to quote our indefatigable instructor, Mr. Park “wading through such a beautiful piece just simply doesn’t do it justice.” For a person who has never “waded through” anything in their life, doing it for the first time on stage in front of two hundred people truly humbled my pompous teenage ego.

After months of diligent preparation, inculcation, and resuscitation, the concert ended in utter disappointment. Well, disappointment for me, but comedic onslaught for my parents, who had waited eighteen years for a moment in which they could publicly cackle at my failures. “It’s nice to know that he’s lousy at something,” quipped my ever charming, sardonic father. “The poor guy finally loves something, and it doesn’t even love him back.” That was my dysfunctional relationship with the instrument I for some reason decided to become infatuated with.A beautiful creation, crafted from the finest wood, hemmed meticulously into the perfectly curving, mildly sensuous pear shape that has mesmerized the likes of Mozart and Pearlman, the violin and I initially did not harmonize. Hacking at its tender fibers, scratching its spotless exterior, the instrument repaid my roughness with an equally dissonant and rhythm-less emanation from its strings. However, in my eyes, this well-worn, rented violin was a Stradivarius lost in the scroll of time. I, though, envisioned her seeing me through her f-holes as a scrawny and barely pubescent boy without the slightest idea of how to hold, caress, and bow a tender and elegant instrument such as her-self. How could this love story have a happy ending?

Well, certain relationships need a catalyst, and for us, it turned out that the concert failure set into motion a drastic change in our friendship. Listening to the atonal, cacophonous renditions NCP beginning strings performed inspired a fiery desire for improvement with in me and my 80 bassist, cellist, violist and violinist peers. I focused tremendously on the artistry of my bow stroke, listened attentively to the intonation of my finger placements, and realized that counting played just as an important part in orchestra as it did in calculus. To practice, I stumbled upon the on-sale with free one-day shipping Lord of the Rings Violin Solos for Beginners sheet music abusing my Amazon Prime monthly trial. Up until that point, we had nothing in common, no points of conversation, but once I opened that book and heard the tiniest vestige of the Riders of Rohan, I knew the violin and I were going steady, and until then, we have never looked back.

The music still doesn’t come naturally to me, and the shrieks of my family to please take pity on both them and the instrument still accompany the sounds that emanate from my violin, but at least now I can pick up and play without feeling bad about doing it. The spring concert exhibited marked improvement from our failures in the winter, and left my teenage ego entirely intact-even though the embarrassment of having to perform with the epithet of “beginner” jabs at all sense of pride. I can now successfully work through Concerning Hobbits and The Shire and although I cannot prove it I swear I saw a teary glimmer in my father’s eye during a particularly stirring bedroom practice session. With watery eyes he struggles through-dare I say-wades through, admitting that, “You are still lousy, but that damn music just gets to me!”

I decide to keep playing, slowly trudging along the green slopes of Middle Earth toward my circular-door Hobbit den, when an exhausted mother interrupts me with the now all-too-common “No more. It’s time to go to bed.”

“But mother,” I explain, “love, even of the orchestral variety, never sleeps.”

At Northside Prep, members of the Tri M Honor Society must complete an individual service learning project and submit a blog entry detailing the experience. Check out some of this year's projects via the link below:

Serving the community, both locally and globally, is what an upstanding citizen does. Musicians and artists in general tend to be compassionate beings who are committed to doing their part to create a better world. By creating and sharing art with others, a select group of student musicians at Northside Prep are beginning to do their part in caring for their communities. My hope is they continue to dedicate their musical gifts to those who might benefit from their kindness and compassion.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

I love this picture. It's why I wrote a little something about the power of digital audio synthesis.

In most high school music programs if you don't play an instrument there is no place for you, sans a general music class or something akin to music appreciation. Perhaps the most creative outlet for non-performance students is rooted in the use of a digital audio workstation; something that more and more high schools are investing in, but not enough. Never has there been a time in the history of music technology where someone could make a full length album, ripe with just about every sound imaginable, in a bedroom or basement - without having to spend thousands of dollars. Why can't this music making take place in a more formal setting - like a music classroom - where the music educator can teach the fundamentals of music production and creation.

There is something very liberating about triggering the sound of just about any instrument ever known to man with the simple stroke of a finger. Why not liberate our students from fear or indifference of music creation by providing these digital audio workstations for them to explore and play with? After all, isn't learning most fun when play and exploration is at the fore of an experience?

Monday, May 20, 2013

Saturday, May 18, 2013

While perusing the good ole world wide web for performance and interview footage of Seiji Ozawa, I stumbled upon a documentary on Mtislav Rostropovich, the great Russian cellist. The full length documentary was aired on the BBC in 2011. Enjoy.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

I just received word that the iPad application for Smart Music is now available for download. The folks at Make Music first announced they'd be releasing the application months ago with Spring 2013 the target for release. After waiting and waiting and waiting, the time has finally arrived. There's plenty of time to tinker with the application in your music classroom before school lets out.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

This past Tuesday evening PBS aired an hour long special entitled TED Talks Education. From Geoffrey Canada (Founder of the Harlem Children's Zone) to Sir Ken Robinson (Arts Education Advocate), speakers on the program's bill focused their delivery on one message: dedicating their lives to re-imagining a better educational future for all American youth.

If you are a teacher and care about the state of education in the United States then you MUST watch this.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Below is a link to adjudicator scores for the 2013, 2011, 2010, and 2009 CPS Band and Orchestra Contests. We received Honors Superior Ratings 3 of the 4 years. Our 2010 performance of Soon Hee Newbold's Perseus and Dmitri Shostakovich's Sinfonia for Strings garnered a Superior Rating and due to ACT Testing conflicts, we were unable to participate in the 2012 contest.

“The opening aesthetic of this is remarkable; it’s very well done.”“Good intonation.”“Bravo...very nice...very very talented musicians.”"I apologize for not talking very much, I’m just really enjoying this performance.”"I can tell orchestra members that you have all prepared yourselves well."“So talented...doing things very well...I just need a little more contrast.”"That is some difficult repertoire for those students, but it didn't sound difficult at all.""Quite impressive.""The C# minor chord there at the end was nicely in tune. Congratulations, it's a challenging piece.""Cellos and basses, you're doing very nicely with the intonation on those lower parts. What makes the orchestra sound really well in tune is the fact that you're in tune." "Nice bowing techniques...wrist motion, use of bow, direction...it's very uniform.""Cellos left hands look beautiful...well taught...excellent technique.""I like the fact that you're switching 1st and 2nd violinists around. That's really good. It gives everybody the opportunity to play both parts and develops the concept in students that both sections are equally important.""I really enjoyed that performance thoroughly.""Try to achieve a little more evenness in the articulation of sixteenth notes.""You watch the conductor well...good sense of musical alignment.""Greater dynamic contrast to give the music a little more excitement.""Good balance in the violins and violas.""Excellent music. Excellent ensemble."

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

After dozens and dozens of conversations pertaining to team building with my colleagues in the physical/adventure education department over the past 12 years, I have finally bitten the proverbial bullet and purchased what is considered the bible of trust building, team building, and problem solving activities/exercises. Karl Rohnke's book, Silver Bullets: A Guide to Initiative Problems, Adventure Games and Trust Activities, is an abundantly fruitful compendium of games, exercises and activities for small and large groups. It is just about guaranteed the physical education teacher in your school has one in possession. Ask to borrow it to get an idea of how you can modify the myriad of activities Rohnke outlines for your music class.

Friday, May 3, 2013

My first encounter with the musicians of Brooklyn Rider was in New York City's Avery Fisher Hall when I attended the debut performance of Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble in 2002 - of which they are the "resident" string quartet. I traveled from Chicago to participate in the first comprehensive educator workshop organized by the not for profit Silk Road Project. Members of the Silk Road Ensemble, including Brooklyn Rider, engaged all of the educators in a series of workshops pertaining to the musical and cultural study of regions along the ancient Silk Road routes.

I can go on about The Silk Road Ensemble and The Silk Road Project, but this post is about
Brooklyn Rider - a quartet of consummate string musicians who have re-defined the traditional classical chamber music lexicon to include music deeply rooted in traditional cultures from around the world.

The other day Brooklyn Rider stopped by the studios of On Point with Tom Ashbrook. Take a listen to this segment of performances and interviews.

Perhaps you are familiar with the This I Believeseries launched by National Public Radio in 2005.

Essentially, it is forum for Americans from all walks of life to “share the personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives.”

An assignment my graduate students at VanderCook are required to complete is based on this radio series.

I’ve included below some bullet points from my own “This I Believe - Music Education” essay:

I believe that music education is critical to developing a well rounded individual.

I believe the lessons experienced and learned in an ensemble rehearsal has resounding positive effects on the social, emotional, physical and educational character of a student.

I believe a student who is given an opportunity to contribute positively to an ensemble experience walks away with a myriad of life lessons that will be paramount to their development into compassionate, noble, successful and well-balanced beings of society.

I believe the ensemble director is a leader and facilitator whose primary objective is to impart upon his/her students a passion for creativity and imagination.

I believe that the difference between a good rehearsal and great one is rooted in the collective creativity and imagination of the ensemble.

I believe programming is critical to motivating students to be engaged in the learning process.

I believe an ensemble that possesses the highest of technical facility but lacks creativity and imagination will never achieve the most heightened of musical experience.

I believe music education is for all students.

I believe school districts that do not value a robust fine arts education offered to every single student is short changing their students’ ability to live life to its fullest and closing a door to very fruitful career opportunities.

I believe students who engage in the arts from a young age have a leg up in all aspects of life.

I believe a music teacher - a teacher of the arts - has the capacity to inspire, motivate and positively impact his/her students in a manner that may potentially transform their lives for the better.

I'm sure many of you heard that Janos Starker, one of the most respected cellists of our time, passed on Sunday, April 28th, 2013. Here's a brief segment from NPR in remembrance of a man who believed teaching was his calling.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

I'm sure many of you have seen this performance piece by Taylor Mali, poet and educator. It is a powerful work and speaks to what I consider to be one of the noblest professions one can dedicate their life to.

Whenever I'm in need of rejuvenation, I watch this video:

Taylor Mali has published a book entitled What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World. It's a great read full of a myriad of anecdotes from his time as an elementary school teacher.

Matt Farmer has emerged as one of the staunchest advocates for fighting the powers that be in the Chicago Public Schools system. As a parent of a CPS student, he is keenly aware of what's at stake for the children of Chicago that depend on public education.

Read this article from the Washington Post to learn more about what is going on right now in the Chicago Public Schools.

Better yet, watch this fiery speech Matt Farmer gave at a CTU (Chicago Teachers Union) rally in May of 2012, putting Penny Pritzker, CPS School Board Member, on the hot seat as he "cross examines" her and the CPS' board policies.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Noticed this blog post in draft form that I started in March of 2012. For whatever reason, I never got to posting it; so here it is:

This is my first post unrelated to MUSIC in education, but education in general. Public education is in a sad state of affairs; teachers are being demonized by the media and political establishments as the primary reason for failing schools. I've had the great fortune in teaching for the last 11 years at the #1 high school in the state of Illinois; from my experiences I can tell you first hand that if a student CHOOSES not to learn, a teacher can only continue to encourage in hopes to inspire and motivate a student to care about and tend to his/her education.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Lately I've been watching conductors do their thing on the podium. It's almost cliche to say that Gustavo Dudamel is your favorite conductor. One characteristic of his conducting that cannot be argued is the raw emotion he exudes. Here's a 60 Minutes segment on the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic:

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Did you hear? Muxtape has finally been "snubbed" by the RIAA. What a great resource Muxtape was for resurrecting the art of the mixtape in this new age of mp3s and streaming audio. Hopefully the RIAA and Muxtape will come to some agreeable terms. I'm fairly certain the RIAA will recognize the validity of Muxtape and understand that it may do them some good.

There goes my grand plan for using Muxtape this year in the classroom. Has anyone out there used it for classroom purposes? If so, I'd like to hear what you were doing.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

I've taken the liberty of cutting and pasting an excerpt from the blog to give you all a glimpse of its objective.

About The Blog:

With music now available with a single, offhand click, it's easy to forget that songs are not born whole, polished and ready to play. They are created by artists who draw on some combination of craft, skill and inspiration. In the coming weeks, the contributors to this blog -- all accomplished songwriters -- will pull back the curtain on the creative process as they write about their work on a song in the making.

Other songwriters are featured in the "Measure for Measure" blog including Darrell Brown, Rosanne Cash, Peter Holsapple, and Suzanne Vega.

What a great resource for getting into the heads of gifted songwriters. I think this blog is a must read for any high school general music classroom.

What do you think?

As for Andrew Bird...

If you have not heard of Andrew Bird, I strongly encourage you to check him out. He's a classically trained violinist turned songwriter. Andrew has a penchant for making the violin an integral piece of his indie rock sound. In his "Measure for Measure" blog, Andrew eloquently walks his readers through some of his music writing processes.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Know much about Steve Reich? How relevant is the music of Iceland to the music of today? To what degree of influence did the Pixies have on Indie Rock? Want to stay hip to what your students may be listening to?

Well then...

If you're a general music teacher, more appropriately at the high school level, you should definitely check out Pitchfork TV. You'll find here an assortment of music related streaming videos. Of most interest to the music educator is the One Week Only section of the site where full length featured music documentaries are posted each week.

I'm certain there are ways for you to incorporate whatever it is you experience from this site to the classroom. While some of the videos may be deemed "inappropriate," it's up to you to decide how you'll utilize this resource.

BTW, Pitchfork TV comes to you by way of Pitchfork Media, a Chicago-based online music magazine I visit frequently to read up on music news and reviews of albums and performances.

The reviews published on Pitchfork Media are great examples of top notch music journalism. I have used a handful of them in my own class to help students better approach their own writing.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I recently discovered a website, www.surveymonkey.com, that allows users to create, in a very simple, user friendly sort of way, surveys of all kinds. The website has been in existence for some time now and it could be that many of you are already using it. If so, I'd appreciate if you posted a comment detailing the ways you use it for your class.

If you were unaware of the site and/or have not used it, I'd like to take a moment of your time to share with you how I am using the site right now.

Check out the concert reflection survey I very easily created for my Chamber Strings students to take. Survey Monkey collected and organized the data in such a way that I was afforded an opportunity to do ABSOLUTELY nothing. No collecting of papers and, most importantly, no organizing of the data.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

I'm willing to guess that a great majority of our students know very little about this year's Grammy Life Time Achievement Award Recipients. What better reason to use the Grammy Awards as a means for exploring the rich history of American music with your students.

How about the stirring medley performance of Gospel music by artists such as Aretha Franklin, the Clark Sisters, and a few others I couldn't find specific information on. The performance shed light on the inextricable connections between the great Soul and R&B artists of our time and their musical upbringings in the church. It also brought attention to the significance church music has had on popular music...Well beyond that of Soul and R&B. Seeing that February is Black History Month, I'd say it is absolutely necessary that we, as music educators, share with our students the incredibly pivotal contributions of black music to the fabric of the American sound.

What about Beyonce's introduction to Tina Turner's performance that payed homage to some of the great female singers of our day? She referenced Sarah Vaughn, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Mahalia Jackson, Anita Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Gladys Knight, Nancy Wilson, Janet Jackson (Really???), Whitney Houston (Okay...I can deal with that...I think.), and, of course, Tina Turner. While taking in this particular segment of the Awards ceremony, I got to thinking that this might be a great entry point into introducing some of the great African American female singers of the last 50 some odd years.

Short of actually outlining the lesson plan for you, I will tell you this. Only 1 of over 30 of my students knew of Sarah Vaughn. And it was only because her dad had played Vaughn's albums every so often. None of them guessed the Nancy (Wilson) reference. No one even knew of a musician with the same first name. And when I had them place the artists (mind you with only the knowledge they currently had...all prior to actual research of the artists) in a time line from when they made a splash on the music scene, some actually placed Aretha Franklin before Ella Fitzgerald!!! I even played short clips of each musician's music and encouraged my students to consider the instrumental elements and overall sound of each to help them place where in the time line of American musical history each musician belonged to.

Knowing that my students knew so little and implementing an experience in which they could learn more was enough to have made this lesson worth executing.

I encourage you to check out the video link above and toy with the idea of using it to formulate some lesson plan for your music class.

Note: Know that I completely understand a teacher's decision to not use the video as a result of the "inappropriate" outfits worn by Beyonce and her backup dancers/singers. I teach at what I consider to be a liberal public school institution in which the belief that censorship blinds is one that the great majority of teachers and administrators support and uphold.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

I consider myself to be an avid National Public Radio listener. Be it driving to work and listening to Morning Edition or lounging at home on a Friday evening taking in Ira Glass' stories of This American Life, National Public Radio has been my go to media source for keeping informed of the news, peoples, cultures, and stories that inhabit the world around me.

I must, however, admit that I am partial to the shows that Chicago Public Radio produces because (1) I am a born and raised Chicagoan and (2) the shows, such as World View and 848, tend to reflect the diversity of interests and concerns that I, along with a great majority of Chicagoans, consider to be of great importance.

One show that has become a mainstay on my weekly "things to listen to" list is Sound Opinions. Dubbed "the world's only rock and roll talk show," this nationally syndicated NPR broadcast brings together 2 music journalists, Greg Kot, music critic for the Chicago Tribune, and Jim DeRogatis, music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, to discuss all things pertaining to popular music.

A typical hour long show covers the week in music news, reviews of new albums, interviews with special guest musicians, and a whole lot of banter between the two hosts.

Connection to Music Education....

What I have found to be pivotal in maintaining interest and excitement in my general music class is creating relevancy between musical experiences I create for the classroom and the musical experiences of my students outside of school. Making such connections I believe compel students' interests in and desires for participating in an open forum type classroom where all inquiries, answers, judgments, arguments, etcetera, of "their" music are valued and respected.

Sound Opinions can be a great educational tool.

Currently, my general music students are engaged in a Best of 2007 podcast project. They are having a blast.

I've listed some reasons why a project like this contributes positively to my students' music education:

1. They are required to choose their most favorable pieces of music from 2007.2. They must decide on a short clip of the music they have chosen that best encapsulates the musical information they would like to share with an audience. In my opinion, this process gets at the core of why they dig the chosen music.3. They have to research biographical information and decide on what important and engaging information to include in a very concise informative segment within a podcast.4. They are ultimately engaging in a process of musical exploration and discovery. Isn't this what we want to teach our students? To be inquisitive consumers of music who are equipped with a backlog of experiences that will help them to better choose what they listen to and support?

I encouraged my students to listen to Sound Opinions' Best of 2007 episodes to get a taste of how professional music journalists approach their work.

If I can, as a music educator, cultivate within my students a passion for music similar to that of the hosts of Sound Opinions, I think the world will be a better place.

Take a listen to Sound Opinions via your radio dial or through the program's website and see how you might be able to incorporate ideas similar to that of the show in your own classroom.

In Final....

We should be fostering an environment in which the art of musical discourse, be it written or oral, is encouraged.

It seems many music education blog posts end with a question. So...Here's mine:

What can you do in your music classroom to foster an environment in which musical discussion or discourse is valued and used as a means for creating well versed consumers of music?

Monday, January 14, 2008

Is there a dictionary somewhere out there that may facilitate one's ability to write and speak about music with understanding, articulation, clarity, and inclination? I'm not talking, necessarily, about a dictionary of musical terms. Terms we were forced to learn and regurgitate for music theory and history exams during our undergrad years. There are plenty of those. I'm talking about a dictionary of words that may help one to become adept at recreating a musical experience through written and/or spoken commentary.

It's pretty discouraging when your own students comment on music as if they've never done it before...Maybe they haven't. I'm sure many of you have heard the perennial descriptions of music by your students that start something like this:

It sounds kind of like....Uh....I don't know how to describe it....The guitar part just rocks....I liked when....

Well...Maybe in order to combat this lack of fluency when describing music we need to go to the sources that allow us to consume and ponder articulate thought and commentary about music.

I'm talking about music journalism.

Let's start with you all, the music educators of our world. How many of you read and/or write concert or album reviews? How many of you require your students to? Well...If you do one, then do the other. If you do both, more power to you. If you haven't done either, now is the time to.

It is paramount that we, as music educators, create and implement reading and writing experiences in our classrooms that stretch our students' abilities to communicate with musical understanding and inclination.

It is our obligation to help students build a vocabulary that will allow for mature, well thought out, articulate, and eloquent written and oral communication of music commentary.

The following is one contribution towards the facilitation of such objectives or goals:

Check out our Musically Inclined Dictionary. A one stop shop that my students visit to find and/or contribute a word in the name of music commentary and discourse.

So...Why not create an online dictionary for your students? Here's what I would do....It's quite simple:

1. Go to www.pbwiki.com. Set up a pbwiki page for your class' music dictionary. It's free!!!2. Give students the password you have chosen for access to the page so they can add words they discover to be useful in conveying music.3. Start creating experiences that will allow your students to use this resource extensively.

I'd like to hear what other music educators are doing to facilitate the maturation of our students' abilities to comment on, in both written and oral form, music.

Biography

Leo Park is the director of orchestras and music technology at Northside College Preparatory High School in Chicago, Illinois and instructor of string methods and pedagogy at Northeastern Illinois University and North Park University. In addition, he is an adjunct faculty member at VanderCook College of Music where he teaches secondary general music methods to graduate students.